Joseph Christian had been immersed in the “alt-right,” white-supremacist, Pacific Northwest segregationist movement for some time. His Facebook page overflowed with anti-Muslim and anti-just-about-everything-the-rest-of-us-call a “free society.”
Christian used his right of freedom of speech to poison his own brain until his hands finally perpetrated what his mind was thinking. That’s the problem with tolerating hate speech. It poisons and distorts minds.
When Portland otherwise would have been busy honoring Memorial Day, Mr. Christian shattered normalcy with a vile and cowardly act.
Boarding a Portland light rail train, Christian encountered two young women, one with a Muslim headscarf, and proceeded to taunt and mock the young women.
So aggressive was his behavior that three brave men stood up to defend the young women. Christian, without notice, slashed the men with a knife, killing two – and ran away from the train.
Ricky John Best, a U.S Army veteran and Portland civil servant, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche, a recent graduate of the prestigious Reed College, were murdered. Sgt. Best had three teenage sons and a 12-year-old daughter, all now fatherless.
Micah David-Cole Fletcher suffered serious injuries but is expected to recover.
This was a terrible trade for our country, injuring us to our core. Two of the very best Americans dead, a third injured, all so we can send a belligerent ex-con back to prison where we’ll pay for his life behind bars until the day he dies.
This is a lose, lose, lose deal, fueled by confused, upside down, hateful thinking – and all of it based in fear and not at all in strength.
“White supremacist” – hardly. “Terrified white man” much more truthfully.
Christian apparently was a once-normal kid who took a big wrong turn, ending up with an eight-year stint in prison where he adopted “white supremacist” hogwash. It’s time to expose racial cowardice like this for what it really is.
White supremacist, white nationalist, Alt-right – all promote the ideology that a superior white race must isolate, preserve itself, and protect its “purity” from dilution and degradation by lesser races, cultures, and religions.
This is a strange social-socialism gone upside down and terribly wrong. In truth, these folks seek protection from competition, not isolation from purity.
White supremacy is nothing more than “holding on to we’ve got” from competition of a changing world. It’s a fear-based recoil by folks left behind, trying like hell to change societal rules in order to somehow hang on.
A look at Joseph Christian reveals much more Neanderthal than supreme. His history and rap sheet reveal far inferior life performance – especially standing out as a loser compared to those he murdered.
A 235-pound, 35-year-old man taunting two teenage girls on a train. Bully. Coward. Twisted and sick. “Supreme?” You’re kidding.
The Pacific Rim is as open as any free-wheeling financially and creativity-based business sector in the world. Here, minds from everywhere compete not on skin color or dogma but on merit, and nearly merit, alone.
Colors and creeds from around the world compete and collaborate – and in the process, change the world more dramatically and faster than almost imaginable.
White supremacy here in the Pacific Rim? That’s laughable. From L.A. to Seattle, all must up their game in a contest of the best of what freedom and capitalism represent.
Here we see the best and brightest minds work toward their highest and best uses. And the future is shaped, bent and formed before our eyes. Here, as in sports, true talent rises to the top – and it’s all color blind.
Supreme intelligence is what stands out. White supremacy, hardly.
From centuries back to the very moment of Christian’s vile crime, those fearful of change, those set back by change, those unable to cope with change have invented false ideologies to shelter and build walls against that change.
“White supremacy” is the fearful, cowardly response to open competition in a free world. The people breathing this tripe are those most opposite of “supreme.” These are often criminals, generally poor performers, usually poorly educated, competitively stunted, and yes, lazy.
They’re too lazy to up their own game to take the best of the world on, head to head. Too lazy to improve themselves before attempting to hold back others.
Afraid of competition, they instead humorously label themselves “supreme,” cowering behind our flag, strange dogmas, and even twisted religions.
“White supremacist?” That’s laughable. The vile criminal Joseph Christian exposed this propaganda for what it is. It’s fear of the new faces of an ever-accelerating world.
A 235-pound man taunting teenagers and killing heroes. Supreme? Oh, God no.
Pathetic and intensely sad – oh, God, yes.
